Month: November 2014

SPOILERS AHEAD

I don’t know if you saw the new Hunger Games movie yet, but I did. It was ok, really just a setup for the next movie. Almost nothing happened, save for a sweet scene where a bunch of people storm a dam and blow it up. Hardcore. And Katniss blowing up a freaking jet with an arrow shot from a recurve bow is pretty sweet.

But here was the problem: first and foremost, this movie is the first of two movies, that are comprised of one book. Which raises the question: where do they split it?

I thought they split it at a really good spot. A recently rescued Peeta looks like garbage as Katniss moves to embrace him. and then he jumps up and starts strangling her! For no apparent reason! (unless you read the books. then none of this is news.) Katniss gets slammed all over the room by Peeta, her eyes red and starting to bulge, Peeta has thrown off everyone else in the room, it looks hopeless, our heroine is going to be killed by our hero, THEN BOGGS JUMPS IN AND KNOCKS PEETA OUT WITH A BLOW TO THE BACK OF THE HEAD! Screen goes black for several seconds, long enough for me to think:

Yes! Awesome. That’s the perfect place to end it. All these non book reading moviegoers have no idea what’s going on, and they have to wait until the next movie to see if Katniss and Peeta are ok. Brilliant. I love it. I…wait. Why is the picture back? What’s going on. They’re explaining everything? What the heck? This sucks.

Worst.

Ending.

Ever.

No suspense. No time to deal with all of these conflicting emotions. Nothing left but a bunch of crappy dialogue about tracker jackers and fear conditioning. That anyone with half a brain can figure out. Because normal people don’t choke their girlfriend.

It was a letdown.

I had regained my faith in hollywood for like 3 seconds. And I was promptly let down.

So what can we learn from it?

Ask the questions

Is it part 1? Is it stand alone? Is it asking questions rather than giving answers? Is it giving answers rather than asking questions? Is it creating suspense? Is it resolving suspense?

These are important questions. And the people that made Mockingjay part 1 didn’t ask them. They were supposed to create suspense. They didn’t. They were supposed to ask questions. They answered them. It was horrible.

Stick to your guns

I know that fans are important. Fans are the lifeblood of any entertainment. Fans are not stupid. You think that you’re making them happy. You aren’t. Case in point:

Star Trek: Into Darkness

He’s not Khan. Why would we do that? That’s already a movie.

But he was Khan. And this “new” movie, was an old movie, and the new version sucked. All because JJ thought that fans would love it. And we didn’t. People who haven’t seen Wrath of Khan like it. Because they hadn’t seen that movie yet. Lame.

Stick to your guns. If it’s good, fans are gonna love it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a cliffhanger, or muddy or whatever. As long as it isn’t bad.